Lifestyle

Rod Strunk’s "death" incites Filipino reporters' suspicion

Filipino reporters have been burning the telephone lines at Tracy, California, requesting proof of Rod Strunk's death, according to the report filed by the Tracy Press last Saturday, July 21.

The death of Rod Strunk has reached mythic proportions prompting the Tracy Press to compare Strunk's after-life fate to rock n' roll icon, Elvis Presley—well, at least in the way people express doubt about his reported death.

"They want to know the updates every day. I tell them ‘He's still dead,'" an exasperated city public affairs officer, Matt Robinson, said in an interview with the Tracy Press.

Robinson revealed that his telephone had become a virtual hotline for the past week-and-a-half with Philippine reporters constantly asking for pictures, autopsy report, or just any proof that Rod Strunk, 68, was really dead, as reported last July 11.

The absence of any pictures or valid documents confirming Strunk's passing caused a lot of Filipinos to doubt the authenticity of the news. Some even theorized that Strunk might have faked his own death to escape the charges filed against him here in the Philippines for allegedly masterminding the gruesome murder of his former wife Nida Blanca back in 2001.

Strunk was reportedly found dead on the parking lot of the Tracy Inn where he was staying at the time of his death. Investigators concluded that the cause of death was suicide, which Strunk supposedly did by jumping from the balcony of the said motel.

The interest generated by Strunk's death has bewildered local authorities around the area.

"People are asking a lot of personal questions and I really try to be sensitive to the families," said San Joaquin Country Coroner office sergeant Cindy Angeli. She also received a lot of phone calls from Filipino reporters.

Strunk's body was sent to a toxicology lab to determine if the deceased had any drugs or any substance at the time of his death. It would take six more weeks before the cause of Strunk's death would truly be resolved, Tracy Press reported.